146 



ANTELOPES. 



under it on the upper part of the living animal is a 

 black, which, shining through the grey, produces a 

 sort of raven-blue tint. It is the epidermis only and 

 not the mucous tissue which has this black colour, 

 otherwise the hair would have it ; and it fades when 

 the animal is dead, as is the case with a highly- 

 coloured epidermis in almost all animals. This species 

 was, in former times, met with as a rare straggler 

 within the limits of the colony at the Cape of Good 

 Hope, but it has not been seen there for many years, 

 and indeed it appears to be of even more rare oc- 

 currence than the former three species, of which the 

 discovery is much more recent. All these antelopes 

 appear to be peculiar to the Orange or Gareep river, 

 which flows westward through the greater part of 

 the breadth of the continent, about latitude twenty- 

 eight degrees south. 



The SPRINGBOK (A. euchore). This is the species 

 which, in Southern Africa, corresponds to the gazelle 

 of the north, and it is by far the more abundant and 

 more beautiful animal of the two. In size it is about 

 one-third larger than the gazelle, and it is more 

 symmetrical than even that singularly graceful ani- 

 mal ; so that if it had belonged to the country of the 

 Arabs instead of that of the Hottentots, there is no 

 question that the springbok would have been the 

 most poetical of animals. Its colouring is equally 

 fine in gloss and in tint. The general colour on the 

 upper part is a delicate cinnamon-brown, and that on 

 the under part pure white, and on the flanks these 

 two are separated by well-defined bands of venous 

 red. The head, face, cheeks, and chin are white, 

 with a brown band on each side from the eyes to the 

 corner of the mouth, and a mark of the same colour, 

 beginning in a small point over the muzzle, and 

 gradually widening, till it merges in the general 



The Springbok. 



colour of the upper part. At the loins there begin 

 two duplicatures or folds of the skin, which run 

 parallel to each other to the insertion of the tail. 

 These folds are lined with long hair of the most deli- 

 cate whiteness, and the animal displays or conceals 

 that hair at pleasure. When the animal is in a state 

 of repose, the folds are close, and nothing but the 

 cinnamon-colour appears ; but when it bounds and 

 leaps, they open and the display of white has a very 

 singular appearance. The horns of the springbok 

 are black, round, finely annulated for about half their 

 length, lyrated with bold flexures, and altogether 

 very handsome. Both sexes have horns, though 

 those of the female are smaller : in fact, their general 

 characters are very similar to those of the gazelle. 

 They, however, associate in much more numerous 

 herds, are far more migrant, and do not form into such 

 regular squares for their defence ; and although their 



forward motions are perhaps not more fleet, their 

 upward leaps are more conspicuous. 



As they are the most beautiful antelopes of Southern 

 Africa, so also are they the most numerous, though, as 

 is the case with all the species, they are not now so 

 numerous within the Colony as they were formerly. 

 Indeed, so indefatigable do the colonists appear to 

 have been in destroying every production of wild 

 nature that when the country became a province 

 of science, it was in a great measure one of ruins and 

 memorials ; and it does not appear that the climate or 

 the fertility is at all improved by these labours of 

 extirpation. 



Springboks are migrants over an unknown range of 

 country, flitting with the monsoons, and when they 

 do so, flitting en masse. Formerly the numbers that 

 appeared in the colony when the rains brought vege- 

 tation upon the open plains or karroos, are represented 

 as having been immense; and they still come to the 

 northern parts in very large flocks, though not regu- 

 larly, every year. Where they come they clear every 

 green thing before them ; and it is said that on their 

 marches, those in advance are fat, and those in the 

 rear lean ; and when they turn and move back in the 

 opposite direction, thelean ones fatten and the fat ones 

 fall off. This however is not the way in which browsing 

 animals usually pass over an extensive pasture : as 

 they feed themselves full they linger, and others get 

 a-head of them. When herds of animals ecour a pas- 

 ture, they proceed in a manner somewhat different from 

 this, and one of which some idea may be formed by 

 any one who has seen a numerous flock of dottrels 

 scouring the downs in the autumn, or of flocking 

 birds ranging a stubble field in winter. The birds, no 

 doubt, have the advantage of the wing, and so can 

 corne at once from the rear to the front ; and when 

 the pasture is an unproductive one, the whole roll 

 along like a hollow cylinder. Grazing animals can- 

 not, of course, change their place in the column so 

 rapidly, but antelopes, especially the karroo-ranging 

 antelopes, are very fleet animals, and in teaping over 

 those in advance the springboks are perhaps the 

 fleetest of any. As those that are in front begin to 

 get full they linger, and the others get a head of them, 

 partly by walking and partly by leaping. All grazing 

 animals follow a course nearly similar. The front 

 rank, or even fifty ranks, do not eat the pasture bare ; 

 they take but a mouthful or two and pass on. This 

 may be seen in the case of a single cow (which is one 

 of the slowest animals that are gregarious when they 

 graze) when she breaks into the preserved hay- 

 paddock or the corn-field : she does not eat all bare 

 before her, but luxuriates along, trampling down much 

 more than she eats. This leaving of something for the 

 rest of the flock or herd is not only a general law in 

 the economy of gregarious grazers, but those who 

 choose to examine into nature will find that it varies 

 with the power which the rest of the flock have of 

 coming up : not, of course, with the condition of the 

 particular individuals, for gregarious animals often 

 expel the diseased and the weakly, but with the 

 average powers of the species. What has been now 

 stated is the true theory of gregarious grazing ; and 

 the story of the herds of springboks, which is re- 

 peated in even the most recent compilations upon 

 the subject, must have been introduced by some one 

 who had never examined the animals, and was other- 

 wise very ignorant of the most obvious and general 

 principles of natural history. 



